I had a couple of ideas for how the Animations on Sword Lunges could be improved to make more sense in future Halo games. Ever since Halo 2 when a player Sword Lunges, he just kind of awkwardly hovers towards the enemy, then slices. Which obviously doesn’t make any sense and when you think about it too much can kind of break immersion into the game. Obviously this isn’t a problem from a first person perspective, but seeing someone lunge at you or seeing it from a 3rd person perspective can kind of weird people out sometimes. I’ve even had conversations with people who came to me asking “How does sword lunging even make sense?” Well now I’m offering an idea to help with that.
Idea number 1: Animate a “leap”.
When a player lunges from the ground, It wouldn’t be too hard to animate a very short ‘leap’ animation showing the player actually step forward. To start this animation out, when the sword is drawn the player model should already be set in a position with one leg in the front, and both legs slightly bent, not like the player is crouching, but perhaps his head (and hitbox) may be slightly lowered like the Elite model would in Halo Reach when drawing a sword.
Then when the player lunges, his body starts to move forward instantly as usually, however the animation shows his front leg planted as he pushes himself forward on it, his front leg not leaving the ground until it the rear leg has thrust forward ahead of it. This would give the appearance of the character actually physically lunging forward.
The animation may be slightly complicated while walking, but so long as the legs are properly animated so whichever is in front at the time of the lunge based on your walking animation is the one that is planted, it should work out just fine.
In terms of the Sword placement, as opposed to the player “uppercutting” with the sword, instead perhaps it should be animated so that the player pulls it back alongside his head as he lunges forward, and then jabs it straight out when he reaches the enemy. This would produce a more realistic and powerful feeling “Stab” when lunging a player, especially if properly animated from the first person perspective as well. (As you lunge the sword is pulled back to where only the tip is shown coming from the bottom/right of the screen, then when you get close to the player you see your arm thrust straight forward as if “Punching” the player. If the model could be designed to accurately clip the first person Sword model into the player like the active camo models for Halo CE would actually cut off and clip into the wall that would be fantastic as well. If you are wondering what I’m talking about, load up Halo CE, grab a Sniper, stand up against the wall without Camo and you can see the whole Rifle (as silly as it is), then do the same thing with Camo, and the wall will actually cut off the model for the Sniper the closer you get. That’s what the Sword should do with the player model when you lunge.
Idea 2: Air Lunge uses “Thrusters”
For starters, IF Thrust Pack becomes default and replaces Sprint as is a common idea on the forum, that is what should be used. In fact it should be actively used as a part of both Ground, and Air lunging, to make the animation that much cooler. If not, then you would simply use the default Zero G thrusters to give yourself a little boost (which is what Master Chief used in the final cutscene on Shutdown to slow his decent when he jumped onto the Lich). When in the air, a Lunge animation should look more like you swinging the sword down onto the opponent, since that’s the way you would realistically attack from the air. There isn’t much more to go into in terms of this idea, since it basically just explains the sudden burst in forward momentum.
I know this is a lot of extra work to put into a single weapon in the game. But we’re talking Xbox One here. If you can’t do something like this with all the advancements you have to work with, what’s the point in even releasing new consoles anymore? 
Oh, also, if Elites return as playable characters, their equivalent of Zero G Thrusters should be some kind of Anti-Grav technology similar to short bursts from a miniature Covenant Gravity Lift emanating from some thing on the back of their chassis. Just to make sense of air lunges for them.